Jon M. Chu has seized the hearts of moviegoers once more with his soaring success of a film, Wicked (2024). This Valentine’s, you might catch store shelves stacked with Wicked-themed trinkets to give to your loved ones. Galinda and Elphaba’s friendship has crystallized into an embodiment of female unity and platonic love. Perhaps you could tell from the popular interviews of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande having cryfests. You might be surprised to learn that this isn’t the first of Chu’s adaptations to preach love as an ideology, rather, it comprises the panoply of Jon M. Chu films embracing love.
Take Chu’s film adaptation of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical, In the Heights (2005), as an example. The 2021 film embraces Latinx culture, infusing in its scenes an inclusive love for unity across borders.
The 2018 release of Crazy Rich Asians engenders a cultural understanding of love, with consideration for familial dynamics and socioeconomic mobility. The film declares loud and clear through its picturesque ending for Rachel Chu and Nick Young that love transcends those bounds. I mean, what could be more romantic than loving anyway, despite being pitted against each other; experiencing polarizing identity challenges; and, facing external pressure to conform?
Chu does more than adapt love stories from one medium to another. He brings authentically complex representativeness to the screen, spanning beyond tokenism. Cultural coding — exactly what audiences crave from adaptations of source texts that were written decades ago — with intersectional challenges abound. It’s undeniable that Chu is charged with a public duty in adapting iconic cultural artifacts; he must add to the progressiveness that already exists within the story-worlds.
Chu traverses the zeitgeist excellently, creating the on-screen chemistry many other storytellers fail to integrate into their adaptations. From Glinda and Elphaba, to Usnavi and Vanessa, and to Rachel and Nick, one thing is clear: whether platonic or romantic, love drives Chu’s adaptations. As we await Chu’s upcoming films — Wicked’s sequel, Wicked: For Good (2025), and the Britney Spears’ biopic — audiences’ eyes are on the horizon for story adapters to follow suit in their multifaceted representations of love.